September 13th, 2008 | Uncategorized
By Christine Harrell
For more than 4,000 years, popcorn has been a beloved snack. Early cultures such as Native Americans enjoyed popcorn so much it became a staple in many diets. Back then, people made popcorn by heating sand in a fire and adding the popcorn kernels to it causing them to pop. Today, making popcorn is easy and economical thanks to the invention of the popcorn machine.
A Popcorn Pop Basket
One of the best treats you can create with popcorn machines is a popcorn pop basket. This is popcorn shaped in a ball with a stick in the middle to look like a lollipop. For each cup of popcorn made, cook a half cup of water, a half cup of corn syrup, and a cup and a quarter of white sugar together with three tablespoons of butter and a pinch of salt.
Once the sticky coating is finished (makes strings when the spoon is lifted out of the pot), mix the popcorn and coating together and form balls about the size of a baseball onto food-safe wooden sticks. To save time, make the popcorn in a popcorn machine while the coating is cooking. Several different flavors of popcorn can be made to add more variety.
A large wicker basket is great for holding the pops; just add foam covered in fabric or colored cellophane to the bottom of the basket. Then, push the popcorn pops into the foam to hold them into place securely. To dress up the ”pops”, wrap the popcorn in colored plastic wrap and tie ribbon bows halfway down the stick. Covering the entire basket with colored cellophane is a great way to complete each one.
Festive Popcorn Balls
Instead of using your popcorn machine to make plain old popcorn balls, make colorful popcorn towers. Once the popcorn has cooled, add various candies to it such as miniature marshmallows, smarties, and gummie bears. Then, make the coating as described above, and once it is finished, mix the coating into the popcorn mix. While it is still hot, place a small amount onto wax paper and roll the popcorn mix into round lengths. Finally, wrap colored plastic around the towers to preserve them. A small wooden box makes a great holder for the popcorn towers.
Rainbow Popcorn Bowls
You can make colorful and popcorn treats with your popcorn machine simply by adding different colors of popcorn into a decorative container. To hold the popcorn, use attractive bowls, tins, or even little wooden crates lined with food-grade plastic and parchment paper. Adding the various colors of popcorn can be a bit tricky. Hold a piece of plastic down into the container to hold the popcorn to one side and pour in the first color. Then, add the next color in beside the first and continue until the container is full.
When you are done, slowly pull out the plastic. You can also cut wax paper to fit in the container that can be hidden by adding extra popcorn on top, or you can mix all of the different colors together and simply poor them into the bowl.
Using a popcorn machine to make delightful treats is a great way to sell popcorn. Best of all, these treats are quick and easy to make. Whether you are holding a fundraiser or using the popcorn machine to supplement your business, getting creative will have the popcorn flying off the shelf.
About The Author
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on popcorn machines , visit http://www.snappypopcorn.com.
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September 12th, 2008 | Uncategorized
By Tim Ebl
It can be really hard to find the right gift for certain people. You know the situation I am talking about. Your intended recipient might be able to get anything they want for themselves, or they might have most items you can think of. Well, does this person like a good beer now and then? If so, a beer gift basket might be just the right thing.
Are beer gift baskets appropriate for many kinds of special events and occasions? Of course they are! Your buddy”s birthday will be really special with that bucket of specialty beer and gourmet food items. Many dads would be overjoyed to get a beer basket on that important date, Father”s Day. How about a great Christmas present for your big brother or your father in law? Another great use for this gift is to show appreciation for customers of certain businesses. These unique gift baskets fit many different circumstances and can be modified to match situations and the people involved. I am sure you have already thought of a few ways to use one.
If you look online, you can find many good beer gift baskets. Many of them don”t include beer, although there will be many beer related items such as mugs, coasters and snacks. It can be problematic in some parts of the world to have alcohol delivered, so these beer baskets would be a good match for you. Just add the beer and it would be ready for gifting!
The beer gift basket may actually come in a steel bucket, which is intended for chilling the beer in ice before drinking it. Galvanized or stainless steel buckets are used for this purpose. The bucket most commonly is large enough to fit twelve beer inside.
Gourmet snacks are very common items for a beer basket. There might be crackers, pretzels, gourmet cheeses, beef jerky, or picked morsels of different kinds. Some of the online services allow you to pick from a few of these. This would give you a chance to customize the basket for the person you are buying for.
The ultimate customization option is to build the beer gift baskets yourself. You can research online to get ideas of what you would like to include in your basket. Then buy the items locally or order them in. You can really personalize the gift basket, with exactly the right snacks and collectibles.
So as you can see, beer gift baskets are a great gift for beer lovers. Of course, tact is required when deciding to send or give away a gift of alcohol. As long as you know that the person enjoys a brew now and then you are in the clear. Happy giving!
About The Author
Tim Ebl is a beer lover who likes to give creative, fun presents. For more ideas about beer gift baskets, please visit
beer gift baskets
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September 11th, 2008 | Uncategorized
By Anthony Sastre
I grew up thinking coffee was this thin, water-like substance that my parents drank with their breakfast. It came from a jar, and after being added to water, was mixed with great gusto until coffee was produced. I remember taking a drink once and saying, Ick. For years, my coffee adventure was at at standstill.
Throughout college, I drank a semblance of coffee known as drip, more for the caffeine punch during late night study sessions. I still could not fathom coffee being anything more than a lightly drug-laced liquid experience.
Then, following graduation, I was introduced to espresso. And my coffee world was turned upside down.
Espresso is still coffee. But the way it is blended, roasted, and produced makes it into something so very much more.
The finest espresso in the world begins its life as high quality Latin American coffee beans. Other coffee producing venues (Africa, the South Pacific, etc.) could also lend their produce to espresso, but in my experience, it is the high, mountain grown beans of Latin American that yield the finest espresso blends.
After choosing the right bean, this delight is off to the roasters. All coffee is roasted. But it is the job of the roaster to bring out the unique, tantalizing flavor that each geographical blend has to offer. For espresso, the roast is slow, rich and deep. By taking the required time with these beans, the espresso roast produces a dark, oily bean. When properly prepared, this roast allows for an amazing, Carmel-like characteristic to emerge from the espresso.
But roast alone cannot bring to life the beverage we know as espresso. Much of its beauty is owed to the preparation of the drink. The beans are ground much finer than say a coffee bean destined for the drip coffee maker. The fine, powdery grind forces water to take its time as it pours through the espresso, pulling out the unique and subtle nuances of the bean and its roast. This process is aided by the use of a espresso machine, which uses steam to pressurize and force the water through the ground espresso. As the water is squeezed through the coffee, a three-tiered drink appears, with the espresso tumbling and cascading from the machine into commonly used shot glasses. When allowed to settle, you can see the three parts of brewed espresso – the crema, the body and the base (which, if allowed to set more than a few seconds, will turn the shot bitter).
While espresso is enjoyed on its own, often it is added to steamed milk and flavorings to produce cappuccinos and lattes. It is amazing rich, carmely goodness is distinguished in the drinks it accompanies a definitive, bold coffee punch that is layered with various other flavors.
Espresso helped open the doors of my coffee experience. If you are fortunate, you, too, will be won over by its sirens call.
About The Author
Before buying a coffee maker,check out the award winning Presso at Presso America. Focusing on the area of coffee makers, and espresso makers, Anthony Sastre writes articles for Presso America
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September 10th, 2008 | Uncategorized
By Uchenna Ani-Okoye
All grains, with the exception of rice, and the various grain meals, require prolonged cooking with gentle and continuous heat, in order to so disintegrate their tissues and change their starch into dextrin as to render them easy of digestion. Even the so-called “steam-cooked” grains, advertised to be ready for use in five or ten minutes, require a much longer cooking to properly fit them for digestion.
These so-called quickly prepared grains are simply steamed before grinding, which has the effect to destroy any low organisms contained in the grain. They are then crushed and shredded. Bicarbonate of soda and lime is added to help dissolve the albuminoids, and sometimes diastase to aid the conversion of the starch into sugar; but there is nothing in this preparatory process that so alters the chemical nature of the grain as to make it possible to cook it ready for easy digestion in five or ten minutes. An insufficiently cooked grain, although it may be palatable, is not in a condition to be readily acted upon by the digestive fluids, and is in consequence left undigested to act as a mechanical irritant.
Water is the liquid usually employed for cooking grains, but many of them are richer and finer flavoured when milk is mixed with the water, one part to two of water. Especially is this true of rice, hominy, and farina. When water is used, soft water is preferable to hard. No salt is necessary, but if used at all, it is generally added to the water before stirring in the grain or meal.
The quantity of liquid required varies with the different grains, the manner in which they are milled, the method by which they are cooked, and the consistency desired for the cooked grain, more liquid being required for a porridge than for a mush.
All grains should be carefully looked over before being put to cook.
In the cooking of grains, the following points should be observed:
1. Measure both liquid and grain accurately with the same utensil, or with two of equal size.
2. Have the water boiling when the grain is introduced, but do not allow it to boil for a long time previous, until it is considerably evaporated, as that will change the proportion of water and grain sufficiently to alter the consistency of the mush when cooked. Introduce the grain slowly, so as not to stop the sinking to the bottom and the whole becomes thickened.
3. Stir the grain continuously until it has set, but not at all afterward. Grains are much more appetizing if, while properly softened, they can still be made to retain their original form. Stirring renders the preparation pasty, and destroys its appearance.
In the preparation of all mashes with meal or flour, it is a good plan to make the material into a batter with a portion of the liquid retained from the quantity given, before introducing it into the boiling water. This prevents the tendency to cook in lumps, so frequent when dry meal is scattered into boiling liquid. Care must be taken, however, to add the moistened portion very slowly, stirring vigorously meantime, so that the boiling will not be checked. Use warm water for moistening. The other directions given for the whole or broken grains are applicable to the ground products.
Place the grain, when sufficiently cooked, in the refrigerator or in some place where it will cool quickly (as slow cooling might cause fermentation), to remain overnight.
About The Author
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs
For more information and resource links on food accessories visit: Kitchen Cutlery
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September 10th, 2008 | Uncategorized
By Uchenna Ani-Okoye
Barley is stated by historians to be the oldest of all cultivated grains. It seems to have been the principal bread plant among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. The Jews especially held the grain in high esteem, and sacred history usually uses it interchangeably with wheat, when speaking of the fruits of the Earth.
Among the early Greeks and Romans, barley was almost the only food of the common people and the soldiers. The flour was made into gruel, after the following recipe: “Dry, near the fire or in the oven, twenty pounds of barley flour then parch it. Add three pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seeds, two ounces of salt, and the water necessary.” If an especially delectable dish was desired, a little millet was also added to give the paste more “cohesion and delicacy.” Barley was also used whole as a food, in which case it was first parched, which is still the manner of preparing it in some parts of Palestine and many districts of India, also in the Canary Islands, where it is known as gofio.
In the time of Charles I, barley meal took the place of wheat almost entirely as the food of the common people in England. In some parts of Europe, India, and other Eastern countries, it is still largely consumed as the ordinary farinaceous food of the peasantry and soldiers. The early settlers of New England also largely used it for bread making.
Barley is less nutritious than wheat, and too many people is less agreeable in flavour. It is likewise somewhat inferior in point of digestibility. Its starch cells being less soluble, they offer more resistance to the gastric juice.
There are several distinct species of barley, but that most commonly cultivated is designated as two-rowed or two-eared barley. In general structure, the barley grain resembles wheat and oats.
Simply deprived of its outer husk, the grain is termed Scotch milled or pot barley. Subjected still further to the process by which the fibrous outer coat of the grain is removed, it constitutes what is known as pearl barley. Pearl barley ground into flour is known as patent barley. Barley flour, owing to the fact that it contains so small a proportion of gluten, needs to be mixed with wheaten flour for bread-making purposes, when added in small quantity to whole-wheat bread, it has a tendency to keep the loaf moist, and is thought by some to improve the flavour.
The most general use made of this cereal as a food, is in the form of pearl, or Scotch, barley. When well boiled, barley requires about two hours for digestion.
About The Author
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs
For more information and resource links on food accessories visit: Kitchen Cutlery
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September 8th, 2008 | Uncategorized
By Uchenna Ani-Okoye
During the period between the birth and maturity of animals, their flesh undergoes very considerable changes. For instance, when the animal is young, the fluids which the tissues of the muscles contain possess a large proportion of what is called albumen.
This albumen, which is also the chief component of the white of eggs, possesses the peculiarity of coagulating or hardening at a certain temperature, like the white of a boiled egg, into a soft, white fluid, no longer soluble, or capable of being dissolved in water. As animals grow older, this peculiar animal matter gradually decreases, in proportion to the other constituents of the juice of the flesh.
Thus, the reason why veal, lamb are white, and without gravy when cooked, is, that the large quantity of albumen they contain hardens, or becomes coagulated. On the other hand, the reason why beef and mutton are brown, and have gravy , is, that the proportion of albumen they contain, is small, in comparison with their greater quantity of fluid which is soluble, and not congealable.
The quality of the flesh of an animal is considerably influenced by the nature of the food on which it has been fed; for the food supplies the material which produces the flesh. If the food be not suitable and good, the meat cannot be good either. To the experienced in this matter, it is well known that the flesh of animals fed on farinaceous produce, such as corn, pulse, is firm, well-flavoured, and also economical in the cooking; that the flesh of those fed on succulent and pulpy substances, such as roots, possesses these qualities in a somewhat less degree; whilst the flesh of those whose food contains fixed oil, as linseed, is greasy, high coloured, and gross in the fat, and if the food has been used in large quantities, possessed of a rank flavour.
It is indispensable to the good quality of meat, that the animal should be perfectly healthy at the time of its slaughter. However slight the disease in an animal may be, inferiority in the quality of its flesh, as food, is certain to be produced. In most cases, indeed, as the flesh of diseased animals has a tendency to very rapid putrefaction, it becomes not only unwholesome, but absolutely poisonous, on account of the absorption of the virus of the unsound meat into the systems of those who partake of it. The external indications of good and bad meat will be described under its own particular head, but we may here premise that the layer of all wholesome meat, when freshly killed, adheres firmly to the bone.
Another circumstance greatly affecting the quality of meat is the animal”s treatment before it is slaughtered. This influences its value and wholesomeness in no inconsiderable degree. It will be easy to understand this, when we reflect on those leading principles by which the life of an animal is supported and maintained. These are, the digestion of its food, and the assimilation of that food into its substance. Nature, in effecting this process, first reduces the food in the stomach to a state of pulp, under the name of chyme, which passes into the intestines, and is there divided into two principles, each distinct from the other. One, a milk-white fluid, the nutritive portion, is absorbed by innumerable vessels which open upon the mucous membrane, or inner coat of the intestines.
These vessels, or absorbents, discharge the fluid into a common duct, or road, along which it is conveyed to the large veins in the neighbourhood of the heart. Here it is mixed with the venous blood (which is black and impure) returning from every part of the body, and then it supplies the waste which is occasioned in the circulating stream by the arterial (or pure) blood having furnished matter for the substance of the animal. The blood of the animal having completed its course through all parts, and having had its waste recruited by the digested food, is now received into the heart, and by the action of that organ it is urged through the lungs, there to receive its purification from the air which the animal inhales.
Again returning to the heart, it is forced through the arteries, and thence distributed, by innumerable ramifications, called capillaries, bestowing to every part of the animal, life and nutriment. The other principle the in nutritive portion passes from the intestines, and is thus got rid of. It will now be readily understood how flesh is affected for bad, if an animal is slaughtered when the circulation of its blood has been increased by over-driving, ill-usage, or other causes of excitement, to such a degree of rapidity as to be too great for the capillaries to perform their functions, and causing the blood to be congealed in its minute vessels.
Where this has been the case, the meat will be dark-coloured, and become rapidly putrid; so that self-interest and humanity alike dictate kind and gentle treatment of all animals destined to serve as food for man.
About The Author
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs
For more information and resource links on food accessories visit: Kitchen Cutlery
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